Getting it right on the money

"A global crusade is under way to teach personal finance to the masses?EVERYBODY wants it. Nobody understands it. Money is the great taboo. People just won't talk about it. And that is what leads you to subprime. Take the greed and the financial misrepresentation out of it, and the root of this crisis is massive levels of financial illiteracy.?For years John Bryant has been telling anyone who will listen about the problems caused by widespread ignorance of finance. In 1992, in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, he founded Operation HOPE, a non-profit organisation, to give poor people in the worst-hit parts of the city ?a hand-up, not a handout? through a mixture of financial education, advice and basic banking. Among other things, Operation HOPE offers mortgage advice to homebuyers and runs ?Banking on Our Future?, a national personal-finance course of five hour-long sessions that has already been taken by hundreds of thousands of young people, most of them high-school students. ..." (2008-4-3)

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